2025 Winter HouseCall!

Winter 2025

HouseCall!

Celebrating the donors in Huntington’s compassionate and caring community.

GRATEFUL PATIENT

Your Giving Helps Find Cures for Chronic Pain athy Medina’s life was dominated by hip pain, requiring assistance for daily tasks. Despite trying pain relievers, a cane, and a cortisone shot, nothing helped. Doctors diagnosed her with osteoarthritis but offered no further help, leaving her frustrated and feeling unheard.

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She decided to visit Huntington Hospital for another opinion.

George Tang, MD recommended hip replacement surgery.

Cathy praised Dr. Tang’s kindness and belief in her. She was relieved that her pain would be addressed. She found everyone at the hospital kind and encouraging.

Thanks to your generous support of Huntington Hospital’s award-winning orthopedic care, Cathy has regained her independence and is pain-free and says, “I finally feel normal.

If I need care again, I’m never going anywhere other than Huntington Hospital.”

Cathy’s pain-free life is filled with hope and healing, thanks to Huntington Hospital.

Huntington Hospital is always here for you. As the only trauma center in the region and Pasadena’s largest ER, we remain open 24/7, providing safe, compassionate care through every challenge.

As firefighters, police, and emergency responders work day and night to protect our community, our incredibly devoted employees and physicians at Huntington Health continue their work caring for the community, despite the loss of their own homes, evacuations, and extreme stress caused by this disaster.

Together, we will recover and emerge stronger.

GRATEFUL PATIENT:

Your Giving Delivers the Best Baby Care regnant with their first child, while also settling into a new house and hometown, Lisa and Michael Brown were excited about the next phase of their life. As new Pasadena residents, one of Lisa’s trusted colleagues highly recommended the Family Birth Center at Huntington Hospital.

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“I wanted a clean, comforting and welcoming environment and the best doctors and nurses,” says Lisa. “Huntington Hospital was exactly what we wanted and needed.”

During a routine appointment at 36 weeks, Lisa mentioned to her Huntington Health-affiliated OB-GYN Eleanor Leung, MD, that her hands were excessively itchy. Dr. Leung recognized that this could be a sign of a potentially serious condition and recommended that Lisa be admitted to Huntington Hospital immediately.

Michael holds daughter Jade.

Lisa spent the next several days at Huntington Hospital and underwent multiple interventions to help her labor progress. However, when she was still not fully dilated and developed a fever, Huntington Health-affiliated OB-GYN Helen Huynh, DO, decided that for the health of her and her baby, it was necessary that Lisa have a cesarean section.

Dr. Huynh performed the surgery and safely delivered baby Jade, who was then taken to our neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) for extra attention. Jade’s temperature was slightly (see page 4)

COMMUNITY SERVICE

Your Giving Helps Seniors Stay at Home In 2022, 84-year-old Manling Wu, suffering from Parkinson’s disease and living with her daughter and son-in-law, faced life-threatening complications. She had a tracheostomy and a gastrostomy tube inserted before being transferred to a nursing home for extra care.

As her health worsened, leaving her unable to walk or talk, her family grew anxious about her future care. Her daughter Emily wanted her mom to be with family, so she sought services to support home care. She found Huntington Health’s Senior Care (see page 3)

The Charitable Power of Your IRA id you know donations from retirement assets, like a distribution from your Individual Retirement Account (IRA) can maximize your impact while minimizing taxes imposed on you and your heirs?

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We are grateful to the increasing number of our donors who are using the charitable power of their IRA to make different kinds of gifts to Huntington Hospital and save taxes at the same time.

• You can save on taxes during your lifetime with a gift from your IRA with a Qualified Charitable Distribution (QCD).

A Qualified Charitable Distribution can be made from an IRA after age 70.5. After age 73, an IRA holder must start taking the required minimum distribution (RMD).

Using a qualified charitable distribution will reduce the RMD requirement dollar for dollar, a win-win that saves taxes every step of the way.

“We are delighted to make a gift with our Qualified Charitable Distribution (from our IRA) so we can help fund cardiac care.”

— Emeritus doctor

• You can receive a fixed, reliable income for life by funding a one-time Charitable Gift Annuity of up to $53,000 from your IRA. You benefit from payments during your lifetime and the hospital ultimately benefits from the remaining reserve.

“When I read in the Wall Street Journal that I could fund a charitable gift annuity with my qualified charitable distribution from my IRA, I contacted the hospital so we could both benefit.”

— Long-time hospital donor

• You can give beyond your lifetime by naming the hospital as a charitable beneficiary of your IRA. A direct distribution of retirement assets can be very tax-efficient, with more funds for charities and heirs alike.

“Knowing what a planner my dad was and the importance he placed on giving back, it made perfect sense to me that he left the remainder of his IRA to Huntington Hospital and his alma mater after he passed away.”

— Donor’s daughter

Our new website puts gift planning resources at your fingertips: huntingtonhospital.planmylegacy.org

Your Giving Helps Seniors Stay at Home (from page 2) Network, which connects seniors and their caregivers to care coordination, education, support, health care plan navigation, and other resources.

Emily says: “Before I was connected to SCN, I felt overwhelmed in the face of my mom’s health needs. Now, I feel confident in providing care for my mother because we have support. I don’t know what I would do without SCN and I’m so grateful!”

Senior Care Network: Celebrating 40 years of service to our community.

Your Giving Delivers the Best Baby Care (from page 2) elevated, and she needed antibiotics. “I was so sad I couldn’t immediately be with Jade, but I knew it was the safest place for her.”

While Jade was in the NICU, nurses helped Mom recuperate and regain her strength, and prepared her to breastfeed. “The Huntington nursing team was really great while I was recovering,” says Lisa.

In not too long, baby Jade more than doubled her weight from six pounds at birth and is as healthy as can be. Lisa says she knew she made the right choice to give birth at Huntington Hospital. “I was impressed by the level of compassion and personalized care, and did not feel like just a number there,” she says.

“We wanted to choose the best hospital and we certainly did.”

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Where and When to Get Medical Care?

From primary care to emergency care – and everything in between – we offer you a full spectrum of care options to help keep you healthy.

To include Huntington Hospital in your estate plans or to find answers to your questions, please contact Helen Bechtolt, senior director of principal and planned gifts, at (626) 397-3241 or helen.bechtolt@huntingtonhealth.org.

100 W. California Blvd. l Pasadena, CA 91105 (626) 397-3241 l giving.huntingtonhospital.com